


Ammendments

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [18]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 06:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Of course, he found out. Noctis had always known that he would, really. Noctis could read how angry Nyx was about it through the lines of his text.“We need to talk. Get over here.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/158288032177/hey-your-noctnyx-stories-are-the-best-thing-ever) for multiple requests.

He knew that Nyx was going to hate him for it. And he knew that Nyx was going to find out. And he knew that it was going to hurt when he did.

But Noctis couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not after pacing outside of the infirmary, dreading whether or not the medic would come out with an abortive shake of the head and destroy his world without a single syllable. No matter how much Crowe had assured him that Nyx had taken worse hits than this, Noctis couldn’t hear her over how his own soul was screaming as he stared at Nyx’s bandaged up body in the medical wing.

This was what the glaive did. He didn’t need Crowe, or Nyx, or his father to tell him that. They put their lives on the line for the protection of the kingdom. Some outings were easier than others. Sometimes the Nifs contradicted the glaive’s reconnaissance and there were surprises waiting for them out on the frontlines. Sometimes those surprises did more damage than was originally projected. But no matter what the Nifs threw at them, the glaive was prepared to improvise. Because that was their job. They didn’t run away when things didn’t go according to plan. And they took the heavy hits that meant keeping the Crown safe.

None of that stopped Noctis from breaking the unsaid rule between him and Nyx since they’d gotten together.

He’d argued with his father over dinner one night after he’d visited Nyx in the recovery wing. He’d pleaded with Regis to make up some sort of excuse that could keep Nyx from going out on the dangerous ops and prevent him from getting so badly injured again as he was from the last mission. Regis had immediately refused, citing that it would be far more dangerous to keep Nyx off the field than on it. That he was one of their most invaluable soldiers and they’d be losing an asset if he was pulled from active duty too often.

He was halfway through a lecture about how the King needed to stay impartial to his subjects, and Noctis was halfway to hysterical when he blurted, “Wouldn’t you have done anything to keep Mom alive?”

It had been quiet for a long time before Regis had sighed and said, “He’s not going to like it when he finds out.”

“ _If_ he finds out,” Noctis insisted.

Of course, he found out. Noctis had always known that he would, really. Noctis could read how angry Nyx was about it through the lines of his text.

_“We need to talk. Get over here.”_

He knew that it was going to be bad. Because he knew that despite all of its dangers, Nyx loved his job. He loved protecting people. He loved feeling like his life had purpose if he was saving someone else’s. It wasn’t so much principle that Noctis had insulted by taking it away from him. It was a matter of insulting his pride.

In Galahd, you were raised to have honor. It was a culture that bred warriors. They were a people built from blood and dust. They were swords and shields and raw everything. Raw strength, raw energy, raw emotion. They grew tempered over time, but the wild desert sun still boiled through their veins. Still lit their way through trials and deceptions.

By disrespecting Nyx’s honor, by breaking the cardinal rule of manipulating his position as Prince to give him special treatment, Noctis had insulted all of that. Nyx told him as much when Noctis finally found the courage to arrive at his apartment. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and watched Nyx pace like a caged animal, shrinking against every raised word he growled through the bars.

“I can’t believe you!”

“I’m sorry, I just wanted…”

“That’s all it ever is, huh? It’s all about what the Prince wants, everyone else be damned.”

Noctis cringed. It hurt so much more coming from Nyx. Because with Nyx he’d been allowed to believe that maybe he wasn’t that. Maybe he was more than a rank in a monarchy, and maybe he was _better_ than all that rank entailed. Maybe he wasn’t selfish and spoiled and unworthy of everything that had ever been given to him. Things like comfort, friendship, _love_.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he murmured, staring down at his shoes.

“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to have not gone behind my back and lied to my face all month. But I guess neither of us are getting what we want.”

“All I want is for you to be safe. Why are you acting like that makes me the scum of the earth?” Noctis snapped, suddenly angry.

“It’s not my job to be safe when…”

“And why is everything a fucking _job_ to you? This is your _life_ we’re talking about…”

“Yeah, and it’s nothing if I don’t use it to protect the lives of people who can’t protect themselves.”

“ _Your_ life is everything to me…”

“It’s not yours, Noctis! You don’t get to decide how I live it! You don’t get to pick and choose what you like about it and throw away what you don’t. I’m not a dinner plate, for Shiva’s sake! I will die for my people if I have to. I’ll die for my King, I’ll die for you…”

“If you’re only with me to die for me then, I don’t want anything to do with you!” Noctis screamed, pushing against Nyx’s chest and throwing him back a step. “I’m not going to be the one that buries you!”

He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t stand there and listen to this suicidal bullshit like he should feel honored to watch the man he loved throw himself in front of a Magitek firing squad to be torn apart for people that didn’t even know his name. He was so sick of hearing about death like it was some kind of reward for acts of loyalty.

Noctis didn’t hear “I love you” in “I will die for you.” All he heard was “I want to leave you.”

So, he left first. He stormed out of the apartment before the tears could crush him to his knees and trap him there. The door slammed behind him and he warped. On and on and on. From billboard to windowsill to rooftop to anything. Until he was scraping his knees on the flat top of an unfamiliar building in a lost strip of the city. Until he was dizzy from expending too much magic and heaving sobs from how much more his heart hurt than his head.

He’d never been heartbroken before. He’d never let anyone in so deep that they could hurt him from the inside out. It burned worse than fire on his skin. It was colder than Shiva’s kiss. It ripped and tore through him bloodier than a behemoth’s fangs. Tears poured from fathoms of himself buried so low he’d thought them lost. And wished that they were.

All his life, people had died to protect him when he’d never even wanted them to. All he wanted was for them to live. All he wanted was to protect them back.

All he wanted was to never lose Nyx’s grin. All he wanted was to stay wrapped up in his powerful warmth and know that they were safe so long as they were together. All he wanted was to be happy and to make Nyx happy, too. Return every smile that ever made his heart jump and hope his did the same.

But he’d lost it. Everything he’d ever wanted. By trying to keep it safe, he’d destroyed it himself. Why was it so selfish of him to be so in love with Nyx that he didn’t want him to die? Why did trying to keep him alive cost him Nyx entirely? Why could it never be simple? Why did he have to ruin this, the one thing he’d been trying so hard not to ruin, just like he ruined everything else?

He was lost in a city that wanted to kill the man he loved, on his hands and knees on cold, gray concrete. As hard as Nyx’s glare had been. Noctis cried and curled up against it. It was as close to the feeling of those eyes he was ever going to get again.

* * *

He didn’t see him again for another month.

And it made Nyx sick to his stomach.

Every morning he woke up and Noctis wasn’t there, he had to sit on the bathroom floor and press his head to the cool tiles of the wall until the nausea passed.

The absence of him was everywhere. Objects abandoned in his apartment that didn’t belong if Noctis wasn’t there to use them. Particular brands of shampoo in his shower that made Noct’s hair soft. Just like Nyx liked it. Microwavable heart attack meals in his fridge that he had no one to tease over. Sometimes Nyx would make one for himself. Just to breathe in the scent and grip tightly to the illusion that Noct was standing in front of the microwave, impatiently waiting for the timer to wind down.

Nyx still pulled two coffee mugs from his cabinet every morning. He was halfway through filling the other one before he remembered that Noct wasn’t there to drink it. It would sit on his kitchen table until it was cold. Until it proved to him that no one was coming to snatch it up and down it like a dying man in the middle of the desert.

It was the longest five weeks of Nyx’s life.

Work was a ghost of all the things he’d said to make tears sprout up at the edges of Noctis’s eyes. Dismantling MTs wasn’t a privilege anymore; it was god damn therapy. He would end up tearing into the glowing-eyed abominations long after they were dead, and his friends had to come drag him off the field. All he could see in the hollow stares of the Magitek faces was his own reflection. All he could hear in their wails was himself screaming at Noctis. Making him cry. Making him hurt. And he just wanted to rip the shambling shell apart until he couldn’t see his face in it anymore.

He didn’t see Noctis once around the Citadel on his turns for the guard circuit. He wondered if Regis might have had something to do with that, putting him on routes to deliberately avoid crossing paths with the Prince. Or if Noctis just didn’t come to the Citadel at all anymore. Maybe he was avoiding him himself by staying at his apartment with Ignis. Whatever the case, Nyx found himself walking a little quicker to every corner on his route, in the hope that maybe when he turned it, he might catch the silhouette of Noctis haunting down the next hall.

Nyx wasn’t religious. He didn’t have much faith in the Six. But the customs of his people were still deeply ingrained within his bones. They believed that nothing was a coincidence.

And they were big into signs.

His came in the most unlikely of places. Strolling through the tiny Galahdian market in the poorer district of Insomnia. Passing a homemade toy stand. And catching the beaded eye of a familiar face.

The elderly woman running the stall didn’t blink twice at the grown man buying a stuffed animal for himself. She merely gave him a sage nod as she thanked him for his purchase, as if she had some sense of what the thing was for.

“May he bring you good tidings,” she murmured.

Once he put the effort in, it wasn’t so hard to find Noctis. He supposed that his own lack of trying had been his own way of hiding from him, too. All it took was a casual question to the first worker he saw – “Is the Prince in?” – and he was on his way to the over-sized bed chamber. There was some kind of irony there, Nyx was sure of it. Things had pretty much started in that bedroom. Night terrors calling a faithful glaive bored in the halls to lay next to the prince until the daemons turned to dreams.

He hoped beyond hope that he could still be his knight. And not one of the daemons that mocked him in the dark.

Nyx hid the gift behind his back and raised a fist to knock on the door. It took him far too long to make his fist move. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. That he loved him? That he’d do better? Was that going to be good enough? Part of him trusted that the right words would come to him if he could only see Noctis’s face. Look into his wide, sky eyes and find that everything made sense when his own heart was reflected back at him.

He knocked.

“What,” came the morose response.

“It’s me… Asshole calling.”

He said it because it was true. He’d been an asshole. But he also said it because he thought maybe it might make Noctis laugh. Self-deprecating humor like that had made him chuckle in the past. Nyx had gotten into the habit of talking like that with him around. Probably not the most appropriate thing to say right now though… As evidenced by the deathly silence on the other side of the door.

“Sorry, I, um… Monica told me you were here and I just wanted to see you – _talk_ to you, I meant, talk to you.”

He didn’t think he really meant it. He just wanted to see him. Even though he didn’t deserve to. A month was a long time to be away from him. He just wanted to see his face, see the color of his eyes, the fall of his hair; see that he hadn’t totally ruined him. The silence didn’t grant him that permission.

“Okay,” Nyx said to it, swallowing the tightness in his throat. “I get it. I’ll leave you alone.”

He turned to go, considered leaving the gift at the foot of the door for him to find later, but then those doors opened.

“I didn’t give you leave to go.”

It was a detached voice, Noctis falling behind the mask of the Prince he hated so much to protect himself from feeling what hurt. He kept his face expressionless so that Nyx couldn’t see what was underneath. But there were still tells that he couldn’t quite cover. Dark circles weighed beneath his eyes, his hair in a mussed up tangle from hiding underneath pillows, his clothes over-large for him to wrap himself inside because he was the only one around to comfort himself. He’d isolated himself and Nyx hated that he’d done that to him.

Noctis disappeared back into the bedroom, leaving the door open. Nyx steeled himself and followed behind. Noctis sat perched at the edge of his bed, looking at the floor beneath Nyx’s feet. Nyx couldn’t help the tug of fondness in his chest at the sight of the sprawling mattress. While his apartment had become their home, this room held a special place in his heart. A lot of firsts here. The first time he’d ever laid beside Noctis, the first time Noctis had ever told him a secret, the first time he’d slid his hands beneath his shirt, the first time he’d kissed the inside of his thigh and gotten that too shy smile for the lusting mess Nyx had already made of him.

And it would be the first time he’d apologize for ever making Noctis cry.

Nyx squeezed the stuffed animal at his back for good luck before presenting it to Noctis. Peace-offering first.

“I, uh, saw this and thought of you.”

Noctis stared at the plush Carbuncle. For a moment, Nyx was sure that he was going to reject the gift – which would be the least of what Nyx deserved. But after a while, Noctis tentatively took the terrycloth creature from his hand. He set it down in his lap, fingers sliding over the big tufted ears. Nyx carefully sat down on the bed, keeping his distance and watching Noctis stroke his favorite fairytale. It wasn’t enough to get him to smile, but Nyx felt a small shift in the atmosphere that invited him to finally apologize.

“I’m sorry, Noct. For all of it. I shouldn’t have gotten that mad. I can’t even remember anymore why I was so angry. I should have just talked to you about it. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, damn. I want to make it up to you. However you need me to. Or if you can’t forgive me, that’s fine, too.”

It wasn’t, but he knew it was only fair to leave it as an option anyway. This wasn’t about him anymore. He loved Noctis too much not to put him first. He hadn’t done that the night they fought. And while it would hurt like no Magitek bullet ever would, if Noctis couldn’t forgive him, then Nyx couldn’t keep asking him to.

Noctis hugged the toy to his chest, resting his head between the ears and staring at a point between them for a long while. When he next spoke, his voice was so quiet that Nyx had to strain to listen.

“I’m not sorry that I don’t want you to die.”

It was hard to think of something worthy to say to that. Everyone who ever cared if Nyx lived or died was dead themselves, or they were in the glaive with him, trained to take the grief should any of them ever bite it in the line of duty. Nyx hadn’t had someone at his back like Noct in a long time. He hadn’t had someone that he had to leave waiting at home.

“I’ve been doing this for most of my life, Noct,” he started. “I’m good at it. And it’s because I’m good at it that I fight the things that might kill anyone else. I can take the big bads. The people they try to hurt can’t. That’s why I have to do this, and I like doing it.”

Noctis squeezed his eyes shut and Nyx panicked that it was the wrong thing to say. His hands instinctively shot forward to hold Noctis before he had enough sense to pull them back. He bit down on the backs of his teeth, searching for a better way to compromise.

“I know I said that I would die for this country. And if the day ever comes where there’s no other choice then, yeah. I still would. But the battles we fight every day on the borders are not the impossible choices. Every day is a choice in the glaive. It’s not a death sentence unless you’re determined to make it one. I choose to survive each fight so I can die another day. And another day, and another day, and every day after that. I choose to live through every battle so I can come back and see you again. Not so that I can die and never protect you again.”

“I just wanted to protect you, too,” Noctis said, his composure shaking into a rough noise that he tried burying in Carbuncle’s head. “I didn’t know how else to do it. And I didn’t think you would let me if I tried.”

“Probably not. Too stubborn to ask for help.”

Nyx smiled at him and Noctis hugged the stuffed animal a little tighter. “I’m sorry for betraying you like that,” he whispered. “I just… Seeing how hurt you got after that last mission, thinking that you weren’t going to get up again… It drove me insane.”

“Maybe I could afford to be a little more careful then,” Nyx promised, softly.

Noctis looked at him, searching his face frantically for some kind of signal. “Will we be able to get past this?”

“I want to. If you want to?”

Nyx held his breath, waiting for a sign that they were going to be okay. As the silence progressed, he realized that he couldn’t hear Noctis breathing either.

“I miss you,” Noctis finally sighed, breaths trembling.

“I miss you like hell.”

Noctis smiled at last, a tiny, fractured little turn of the lips hidden behind Carbuncle’s scruff. It made the month apart feel a little less lengthy.

It wasn’t all at once. It took a second to break something and a whole lot longer to put it back together again. It was slow and it was steady, but it was worth the agony of waiting to be with him again. To be _right_ with him again. They went out with the few friends that they weren’t a secret from, learned to laugh with each other like they used to. There were a few dates, Nyx taking him to some of their favorite spots and just talking. About nothing.

Contact was gradual. Hands being held beneath tables. Very delicate kisses goodnight. Each one lasting a little bit longer than the one before. Opening a little bit here. Pushing a little more there. Until it all came to a head on Nyx’s couch, during the romantic reunion between the alien prince and the human protagonist of Noct’s favorite sci-fi movie. Where Noctis jumped into his lap and smothered him in kisses until Nyx lifted him up and threw them both back into his bed.

Noctis reminded him every morning what he had to come home to. And Nyx reminded him every night that the promise of returning to Noctis was what truly protected him.


End file.
